Doom 4 First Info

BOOM widget 118800During an interview with Shacknews, id Software president John Carmack described Doom 4 as being "significantly different" than Doom 3.

When asked whether the game will be rooted in the horror genre, Carmack indicated that it will instead focus more on pure action elements a la Doom 2.

"One of the things that I come to in my limited contributions to the whole Doom 4 design process is, it has to still be you beating down the bad guys," said Carmack.

"It has to be a triumph of heavy weaponry over demonic forces in some way, and you have to be blowing demons all to hell all around you, and it's a more positive side of things there."

Carmack explained that he found some of the complaints of Doom 3's brand of horror to be "completely valid," saying that the "contrived nature of monsters hiding in a closet" and the extreme darkness were two things that caused the company to cancel its game Darkness and begin production of Rage.

Needless to say, there will be no scary little girls in the Doom 4.

"It's not that you're running around frightened down to your last bullet [in Doom 4]," added Carmack. "There will occasionally be that, but it should be much more of you winning, because that was always the point in Doom--you are the hero, and you are winning. You're going to beat back all the hordes of Hell using all the tools at your disposal."

Development of Doom 4 will be short, as very little of the id Tech 5 engine will be changed in the transition from Rage. The game will feature at least one "graphical hook," and should have three times the graphical fidelity of Rage due to a lower target framerate.

However, according to Carmack, the focus will mainly be on creating a solid gameplay experience. Carmack also reiterated that the Doom 4 will most assuredly be M-rated, and that the game's multiplayer modes will be more extensive than those in Doom 3.

id is targeting a release within this console generation, as the game is expected to hit on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.